I bought a set of Cobra model PR4700-2WXVP radios... they're the high power (5 watt) ones, came in 2 pack with desktop charger and battery packs... reg price was $120 (cdn) were on sale for $100.... timing was right (week before deer opening), so I picked 'em up.
What I liked.... that you could turn off all the beeps and such, and have "vibra-alert" calling.... hate beeping sounds when hunting. I also liked the range... didn't really test how far they would reach, but 5 or so Km through bush was no problem.
What I disliked.... they're bigger than the smaller/cheaper FRS motorolas that my B-I-L has and we've used before... but they need batteries for the 5W output, so I could live with the size/weight.
Bigger problem... they go into "powersave" mode when they haven't received a transmission or transmitted for something like 5 seconds.... they do a poor job of switching out of this powersave mode when someone tries to talk to you. At best, you miss the first second or two of their transmission, or worse, if it's a weak signal, the incoming trasmission never kicks them out of "powersave" mode and you just miss the transmission. Happened LOTS of times over the few days I used them. My B-I-L had his motorola FRS and could receive things that I never heard (I know cause we were standing side by side)... I'd trasmit out to another buddy on my radio (higher transmit power) but we'd only hear the response on B-I-L's FRS.
I kept his spare motorola in my truck so that I wouldn't miss their calls when we were gonna arrange a pickup or meet.
You could overcome this problem somewhat by manually overriding the squelch, but you'd have to know their was a call coming in (then get all the background static). If you were using the twin radio, you could use the "call" and to notify that you were trying to get a hold of them, and then manually override the squelch... but this won't work if the other party has different radio (call function doesn't work then).
Was enough of a PITA that they're back in the package and going back today. If they were $29 ones, maybe I'd keep 'em but for $100 they should work better. I like the range, but think maybe I'll try motorola's.
That's my $.02
